Vocal Voices

Especially when they have done wrong? We do it with politicians, the police, the medical profession, bankers, business people. They break the rules / law but then we let them off and they keep all the benefits of their position - pensions, bonuses.

It does not happen to binmen, checkout operators, plumbers, car mechanics, etc.... you get the drift! They just get sacked.

That is what should also happen to the privileged.

Perfectly happy with that, as long as employees being deliberately obstructive, not pulling their weight, or producing shoddy work can also be sacked without recourse to an industrial tribunal ....

What I want to know is, if members of the public can throw eggs at politicians why can't politicians throw tomatoes in civil servants?

If this is the Raab situation I'm two ways on it.
No one should be bullied, but I have serious doubts about if anyone was bullied or not.
Where I used to work one woman bullied other women, and there was no two ways about it.

There is a problem with younger workers. My friend who is still working had to deal with a situation recently. One you woman in his team told him that she felt belittled because a young man in a meeting "hadn't listened to her" and had "talked over her". Following strict rules friend then asked her did she want to take it further? Yes she did.
So he contacts this young man's boss. When said young man is told of the situation HE then throws a wobbly, saying that he "couldn't believe" that anyone could accuse him of such behaviour. etc etc etc.
It was like an opera.
Someone tried to bully me at work once, but my friends stuck by me and this particular manager had to back down. The point being that I didn't throw a hissy fit or clutch my pearls; but for a much lower level of perceived offence some younger people seem to react very emotionally.
It must make being a manager a minefield.

medsec222 wrote:What I want to know is, if members of the public can throw eggs at politicians why can't politicians throw tomatoes in civil servants?

As I understand it this particular civil servant exceeded his brief and was caught out doing it.
He deserved a few tomatoes, I think.

I don't get this.

A (low level) shop floor supervisor accused of what Raab apparently did would have been sacked. No pension emoluments retained, no pay-off, certainly no promotion in their next job - on your bike, off you go.

And yet Raab is still here... ?

I agree with him, that it sets the bar too low. I think there is a world of difference in a manager bullying younger staff in a super market or coffee shop, and an MP kicking his civil servants in to touch for woeful work. You did a politics degree, you want to work in the cut and thrust of politics, with all its mud slinging and tomato slinging, well get on with it and grow a pair.

But maybe that's just me........


I once had a GP throw a pack of Lloyd George notes at me, because I took the wrong ones in to him. He shouted these are wrong patient, I said ok, I'll look again, and as I scuttled off, he said and put these back and chucked them at me. What did I do????? I laughed and I bet they were a damn sight heavier than a Pret a Mange tomato

Shell, I agree with people growing a pair. Had he done it to me he would have got both barrels back, and then some! Many more need to stick up for themselves, but that's not the modern way, sadly. That does not excuse his behaviour.

There are ways of getting things dons - persuasion V bullying - I think that most of us would go for option one. Raab: I'm the boss so you will do things my way, right or wrong, is not the way

No surprise that members of the the CS thought of him a a Cnut, and not the King who held the tide back.

Today one person's persuasion is another person's bullying.

It is far beyond control now.

So, another ne'er-do-well gets to keep his pension rights and a clean bill of health for his CV. This time its Richard Sharp of the BBC.

He just happened to "inadvertently" forget to tell the appointments committee of a couple of 'potential' conflicts of interest: first, by telling Mr Johnson he wanted to apply for the BBC role before doing so; and second, by telling the PM he intended to set up a meeting between a Mr Blyth and a Mr Case to facilitate an £800,000 loan to Johnson.

It is so good for us licence payers to learn that t those "oversights" have served him so well.

This is the second critical report into Sharp, after the Commons Committee one earlier, and he should have been sacked.

In future the appointment of a Chair / DG of the BBC should have no political input whatsoever, they should be by an independent body.